UNMIK Press Briefing Transcript - 26 June 2000

Nadia Younes - UNMIK Spokeswoman
Scott Slaten - KFOR Spokesman
Paula Ghendini - UNHCR Spokeswoman

UNMIK Spokeswoman - Nadia Younes

I’d like to start the briefing with an announcement on the violence that took place in Strpce over the weekend. This is a statement of Bernard Kouchner, the SRSG.

"SRSG Bernard Kouchner strongly condemns the violence which occurred on Friday night when a large crowd of Kosovo Serbs entered the Strpce municipality building, which houses the UNMIK offices and smashed and destroyed everything in sight. The KFOR Information Centre and the Registration Centres were also ransacked. These acts of vandalism against UNMIK and KFOR property, which followed the demonstrations in the municipality over the disappearance of a Kosovo Serb shepherd from Susice village, are unacceptable and must stop.

It was clear to eyewitnesses from UNMIK staff and Police, as well as KFOR, that the events in Strpce were well coordinated and organized by persons not from the region.

On Friday night, following signals passed by gunshots and church bells, a large Kosovo Serb crowd gathered within minutes outside the Strpce municipality building. At the same time a TV reporter and video cameraman also appeared on the scene and filmed the whole incident. Meanwhile, others had blocked the road from Susice village, where UNMIK Police and KFOR were investigating the case of the disappeared shepherd.

The Strpce municipal administrator met with Serb community leaders and spoke to the crowd to address their concerns. As soon as he left for Susice to assist in the search and to deal with the barricades, the crowd rushed inside the municipality building and systematically destroyed everything inside, including computers, files, windows, doors, furniture etc. However, the offices of local Serb employees were left untouched, except for one occupied by a Serb accused by hardliners of being a "moderate".

UNMIK Police and KFOR will continue to investigate the disappearance of the shepherd, as well as all the subsequent events leading to the ransacking of UNMIK and KFOR property."

Yesterday, we released a statement by Bernard Kouchner on the return of the Serbs to the JIAS and KTC. Bernard Kouchner has welcomed the decision of the Serb National Council to rejoin the IAC and the KTC as observers after a temporary suspension of a couple of weeks. He said that this courageous action would allow the Kosovo Serb representatives to once again play their rightful role in building a democratic, peaceful and tolerant Kosovo. He also expressed the hope that all peace-loving Serbs in Kosovo will join in this common effort to build a new Kosovo.

During the past few weeks, UNMIK and SNC have worked closely together to reach an understanding on additional measures to be taken to ensure freedom, security and fundamental human rights of the Serb community in Kosovo. This joint UNMIK-SNC understanding, which contains concrete steps to improve the life of the Serb community, will be signed later this week.

As you know the European Commission for External Relations, Rt Hon Christopher F. Patten, is visiting Kosovo on 29 June. He will hand over equipment donated by the European Agency for Reconstruction to the PTK and the municipal water supply companies. The press can follow his visit from 11.30 hrs to 15.45 hrs. There will be a press conference from 15.45 hrs to 16.15 hrs. Press must register if they want to follow the visit.

Also, the UN International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture in Pristina will be held today. The function is at 2 p.m. in the Grand Hotel. A Pristina Declaration on National Psycho-Social Rehabilitation, Peaceful Co-existence and Prevention of Torture will be signed by the participants and released at the function. Also, just to inform you, the IAC will meet tomorrow and discuss the draft regulations establishing a department of sports and the department of utilities and will also have an in-depth discussion the draft regulation on self-governance and municipalities.

KFOR Spokesman - Major Scott Slaten

In MNB(C) a hand grenade was thrown at a house in the village of Obilic last night. The home was owned by a 50 year-old Serb woman who was stunned during the attack, but was reported as uninjured by the explosion. UNMIK police responded to the scene and is currently investigated the attack.

One Kosovo Serb was killed and one injured by gunfire yesterday afternoon in the town of Kosovo Polje. The men were sitting in a car at the time of the shooting and the injured man was treated by MNB(C) Finnish battalion soldiers at the scene and then taken to a local hospital for further treatment. UNMIK police quickly responded to the crime scene. The ethnicity or motive of the attacker is unknown, however, I have just received an update from the UNMIK police PIO. They are looking for additional witnesses to the crime, which occurred on a junction to a small side street in Kosovo Polje. A witness to the crime saw a man in a black shirt flee the scene on foot and UNMIK police are appealing to the population to come forward with any additional information.

During a search operation in MNB(W), KFOR Italian military police arrested a Serb man from Montenegro for exploitation of women and possession of an illegal weapon. A search of the premises revealed three women, two from Moldova and one from the Ukraine, who were being exploited as prostitutes. An illegal pistol was also seized during the search.

I have a retraction of information published in a KFOR press release this Saturday which stated that an elderly Serb man from the village of Susike had been reported as being safe. This information is incorrect and a search is ongoing.

Questions

Q. The memorandum to be signed by Mr. Kouchner later this week. Can you tell us what’s in there. What it says?

NY. I don’t want to reveal now more than I have already told you in Kouchners’s statement. We will not reveal the contents of it until it is signed, probably on Thursday. We will let you know when it will be signed.

Q. When you talk about the activities of the Serbs in Strpce over the last couple of days you stressed that these were coordinated incidents by people who came from outside the area. Do you mean these are people from outside the area that these incidents took place or from outside of Kosovo?

NY. As I said in the statement, this is based on eyewitness reports. These witnesses are from the region itself and they are people who work in the municipal administration, the local police and so on. As far as they know they were from outside the area. They were not faces that they were familiar with from their daily contacts in the area.

Q. The organization was of people outside the region…or the whole crowd was from outside the region? And what evidence do you have that this was a coordinated action and not just mob violence?

NY. No, it wasn’t the whole crowd that was from outside the region; it was some elements in the crowd that our people detected were not from the region. I think you will see in the statement that we give you an indication of why we have said this was well organized. There were gunshots fired in the air very quickly after the church bells rang and we have got indications that this triggered off a sudden gathering of the massive crowd that then surrounded the municipal building, which I understand reached approximately 800 or more in a matter of minutes. Something must have triggered them and given them a tip-off.

Q. Have you sought out local community leaders and what have you said to them?

NY. The municipal administrator, Mr George Faye, did start a dialogue with the community leaders prior to the incident and then left. The regional administrator, Mr. Spoliti is in Strepce and will remain there for a few days to follow up on the incident.

Q. Who is he talking to?

NY. I don’t know for a fact but I believe he is talking to anyone who can shed light on the incident.

Q. According to the last incidents that happened in Mitrovica and Strpce what do you think of the SNC’s influence…does Artemije have influence in these enclaves now. We know that his influence in Mitrovica is very small but what about in these other sites like Strpce.

NY. I don’t want to speak on behalf of Bishop Artemije but my understanding is that the last meeting of SNC in Grancanica was very well represented. There was a large group of representatives from all over Kosovo including some from the north, not from Mitrovica but from the north.

Q. Knowing that one of the top guys from the SNC, Momcilo Trajkovic, who was in the beginning working with UNMIK but is now no longer doing so and is actually opposing UNMIK…and also Oliver Ivanovic is saying he doesn’t recognize the decision made yesterday. How much influence will there be on the IAC from northern Mitrovica?

NY. Well, what Mr. Trajkovic did is up to him. I think they had a vote and those people left because they didn’t approve of restarting cooperation with the JIAS. For us, our interlocutors, and we stand very firmly behind them, the group of the SNC we have been dealing with, we are exceedingly pleased that they have come back. We have urged all likeminded Serbs to join and to join in our work of the joint administration as well.

Q. Did the members of the SNC react after the attack in Strpce.

NY. I don’t know, you should ask them.

Q. The UNHCR said this morning that it would prolong its suspension of humanitarian aid to northern Mitrovica. What more can KFOR and UNMIK do to ensure the safety of aid workers in northern Mitrovica so that they can return and carry on their humanitarian aid work?

PG. We are waiting to see what kind of agreements can be made within the next few days. Mr. McNamara is meeting with UNMIK and KFOR today. Our Chief Administrator is going up to Mitrovica this afternoon with the hope of meeting the regional representatives of UNMIK police and KFOR but also with some Serb officials there. We do need to have some guarantees and indications that there is a plan that will be followed for us to resume activities. Otherwise, we do feel that these kind of incidents will occur, if not worsen in the coming weeks.

Q. Does this mean that you are not happy with the security strategy in northern Mitrovica.

PG. Essentially, what we have said is that our efforts have been better coordinated this time and we did see a very fast and active response from the joint forces of KFOR and UNMIK police. What we are looking for also is on the part of the NGO’s, the UNHCR is the head of the humanitarian pillar and we have received a list of concerns that they have voiced. For that purpose UNHCR does have to pursue some further discussions. There was a very quick response for us but one of the specific concerns of the NGO’s is lack of communications and telecommunications equipment, so we do need to improve these things. The other side of this of course is that it is not just a matter of response, in addition to response we do have to get some indication that some preventive measures will be put in place from the Serb community and the Serb leaders to ensure that what happened on Wednesday and what has happened so many times before will not keep being allowed to occur with total impunity from the Serbian community.

Q. Given the attacks are removing the international community from northern Mitrovica, are you therefore helping them in achieving their goals?

PG. We do have some indications that the way in which these activities develop so quickly and in such an organized manner indicates that there is some degree of systematic [inaudible] on the part of a small faction of people in the north who would like to see us out. This has happened in other activities and operations that the UNHCR has engaged in. We were accused of blackmailing a community by not providing humanitarian aid. I think we could probably throw that response back by saying that it is the larger community, because we are not only serving the general Serb population in northern Mitrovica but also the displaced Roma community and the ethnic Albanian community in the north. If the purpose is to get us out then essentially the leaders or organizers of these incidents will only be making the situation in their own communities worse which not only discredits them in the international communities eyes but also to some degree in the eyes of the communities themselves.